salvation in a sky of stars
by sweetwatersong
Summary: When the sky is blinding, she wonders what he sees - who she is, or what he's lost. Wing!fic.


**salvation in a sky of stars**  
>rating: g<br>characters: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff  
>warnings: none<p>

summary: When the sky is blinding, she wonders what he sees - who she is, or what he's lost. Wing!fic.

author's note: Set two years after the _water is wide_ (/s/10092829/1/the-water-is-wide). For crazy4orcas.

_salvation in a sky of stars_

"SHIELD needs to reassess its priorities," Natasha snarls in irritation, slamming elbow into a grunt's mid-section with the added force of her anger. Useless, the lot of them, the heart of them -

"Nat-"

""Low-level embezzlers with no combat training-" and someone else stumbles backwards, clutching his broken nose as she shakes her fists and strikes again, "are hardly worthy of our time!"

"_Nat_-"

"What?" She snaps with bared teeth, spinning around once her four attackers are down - but to Clint's credit, she can see the cause of his concern. "дерьмо́."

A crumpled form lies fifteen yards away, an arrow through his motionless chest and an orange glow fading from his outstretched hands. The sandstorm he had begun summoning now amasses power freely without a mage to restrain it - and the whirling, raging monster, a solid two stories high, seems to open its dark maw as it rolls towards them.

The remaining hired help scrambles desperately for non-existent cover, screaming over the roar of the storm. What dilapidated structures remain on the abandoned farm will inevitably collapse under its fury, trapping anyone who thought to hide inside. The oil tank and rusting tractors aren't enough to make a difference on their own; their SHIELD transport vehicle could have worked, if they had not parked it in the driveway to hide their approach.

Natasha drops to her knees, keeps the oil tank on her left, holds out her hand to Clint. He crosses the sparse grass in a crouching run and takes it, as he always has, as she quietly hopes he always will - and as soon as his fingers fold around hers, she pulls him down beside her.

There is pain, as there always is, another jacket lost to feathers and blood. But there is joy too, an exultation in the release, in letting them reach for the sky they belong to; the man they had belonged to.

"Stay down," she tells him, wings spreading to shelter them from the oncoming storm, a dome to keep all the world at bay. The first blast of sand sprays against her pinions, rattling the scant protection, but it does not pass.

Not yet, anyway.

The metal tank shields them from the brunt of the fury, Natasha's wings curving over her as she cradles his head in her lap, and the storm rages around them and finds no place to strip his skin. It tears across the nape of her neck, seeks entry through her feathers, howls when it is rebuffed, kept wanting of its prey.

And all the while he breathes under her hands, steady and even despite the danger, and for that she bows her head, closes her eyes.

When the sky cleared, magic draining into the failing wind, Natasha lets him go and shakes the rubble from her wings.

"Are you okay?" He asks immediately, pushing himself to his knees. _You are safe,_ she wants to answer. _You are whole_.

"I will be," she replies instead, the raw skin over her neck and under the edges of her jacket keeping her words honest, because he is not asking after her heart. "It takes more than that to kill me."

Clint exhales, searching her face for any sign of a lie; _you will not find it,_ she could whisper, knows she already deceives herself this way.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome," Natasha tells him simply, her fingers dragging through the sand. It is worth it, it is worth it, heaven help her, it is worth it.

His fingers brush her cheek, surprising her into opening her eyes, and the expression she sees there makes her catch her breath.

"Thank you," he repeats, in lieu of her quotes about debts, in place of her reminders of payment and owing, in answer to the question she asks more often than she likes.

His focus cuts out her wings, _his _wings, to lie on her and her alone.

She smiles, the burn of scoured bones fading, and stands.

next: the path below your thunder

_fin_


End file.
